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Sony's sales, said market watcher Chart-Track, which provided the statistic, makes the PSP's UK debut the most successful console introduction in the territory yet.

The PSP went on sale in the UK on Thursday, 1 September, and Chart-Track's total combines sales on that day plus those of Friday and Saturday.

Nintendo sold 87,000 DS handhelds in the first three days' of the device's availability.

Many of the sales had already been made, thanks to pre-order campaigns run by retailers and online suppliers once Sony formally announced the handheld console would ship on 1 September. The PSP had originally been planned to arrive in the UK at the end of March, just after the DS debut. But the demands of the US launch, scheduled to take place in the same timeframe, forced SCEE to delay the European ship-date.

Chart-Track said 24 games were available at launch, more than any console has shipped alongside here. Twenty of them went straight into the company's Top 40, and nine entered the Top Ten. Sony's Ridge Racer took the number one slot, pushing the previous sales leader, Brian Lara International Cricket 2005 into second position. ®